Nadhim Zahawi: I respectfully remind the hon. Lady that someone from a disadvantaged background today is 80% more likely to go to university than they were a decade ago. Let me go further and remind her that, in 2016, the coalition Government introduced the new apprenticeship standards and made sure that businesses were at the heart of setting those standards, because it is not politicians or experts in Whitehall who can decide what sectors of the economy will change and re-emerge.
There is a common theme—a strategy—running through all our reforms, from the apprenticeship standards, with more than 5 million people entering apprenticeships, to the skills White Paper, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, which we just voted on and sent to the other place, and now our HE reforms. What if someone had said to me when I was choosing those new standards as the apprenticeships tsar that there would come a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who would back adults at  any point in their life to upskill or reskill, or that we would say to someone in Aberdeen oil and gas who wanted to go and work in offshore wind, “We will stand behind you” with funding of £37,000, the equivalent of four years of education? That is what this Government are delivering and I am proud to be the son of a country that gives real opportunity to people from all backgrounds.
The hon. Lady mentioned the issue of excluding those who may not do so well in GCSEs. That is not what the consultation is about. It is about making sure that there are routes for those people, so that if they do not do well in their maths or English GCSEs, but do well in their A-levels, university is still open to them. However, a different route—an apprenticeship degree—is also open to them, as well as other vocational qualifications. Bringing FE and HE together was central to the Augar panel’s recommendations and that is what we are doing.
Finally, I respectfully remind the hon. Lady, who talked about our financial settlement, that my Department has a settlement of £86 billion for 2024, with £4.7 billion going into schools, £3.8 billion going into skills and £900 million—the highest uplift in a decade—going into our universities. That is our plan; she has no plan.

Nadhim Zahawi: I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s remarks and her solidarity on the situation in Ukraine.
I respectfully disagree with the hon. Lady because, when we look at the overall reforms, we should focus on the outcomes for students. That is what the reforms do. The lifelong loan entitlement, the work that we have done on skills, the ability to do a T-level as a fusion between an apprenticeship and an A-level—there are different paths to achieving a great career as an adult.
Non-graduates continue to pay—at the moment, all taxpayers fund higher education in England at 41p in the pound. We do not think that that is fair or equitable. As former students reach 50 or 51 years old at the 30-year repayment stage, they are coming to their peak ability to earn, so it is only fair that they be able to pay back the loan that they have taken out to give them the opportunity of a great job.

Nadhim Zahawi: The simple answer is that they are not; quite the opposite. If the hon. Lady looks at the Government’s track record, she will see that someone from a disadvantaged background is 80% more likely to go to university than was the case a decade ago. We are consulting on how best to deliver the outcomes. If we become obsessed with the outcome of a great education, a great career or embarking on further study, that is the right thing to do, and we will achieve what we all want to see, which is disadvantaged young people getting the education they need. This package includes £75 million that is focused precisely on disadvantaged pupils who need additional help to get that degree. As the Prime Minister has said, talent is evenly spread in our country; opportunity is not.